Wolf Moon
by yourbcky
Summary: The nights of the full moon are always the hardest.


**I've decided to split all of To Die by Your Side up into oneshots just because having it eternally incomplete would annoy me. Prompt for this quick drabble was 'Lily can't fall asleep until James comes back to bed after the full moon'. Chapter title comes from one of the southern hemisphere's names for a full moon in July. And the fic title now comes from The Smiths' song 'There is a light that never goes out'. I have no idea what happened to the formatting but it's fixed now.**

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The house was quiet, the only sound breaking through the silence was Lily breathing gently and her nails tapping against the window sill. She'd been sitting vigil at their bedroom window since the four boys she considered family had gone traipsing off into the woods behind their house. It was stupid, she knew; James wouldn't be back for hours if things went how they were supposed to.

But she'd made them promise to come and get her if anything went wrong, for any of them. And whilst they had been hesitant, they'd agreed. So she waited for her stupid husband and his equally stupid friends to drag their sorry arses through the front door. At which point, she'd be ready with enough potions to open her own apothecary if she so wished.

There was a howl from somewhere in the distance, too low and urgent to have been Remus. Which meant that it was Sirius, and if she hadn't done this every full month for the past two years, she'd have been worried that something was wrong. But she could tell the difference between pain and impatience, and it had definitely belonged to the second category. As it was, she pulled the long sleeves of her jumper further over her hands, and wrapped her arms around her drawn up knees. She idly examined a frayed hole in the elbow of the jumper, right where the red and yellow met and made a mental note to patch it when she had the time.

She glanced at the alarm clock on her night stand, forced to crane her neck painfully to see around the corner of the book blocking her view of the numbers. Sighing at the fact that it was only ten to four, which meant that it'd be another four or five hours before her boys would be back, Lily pulled the thick, fluffy blanket from the back of the rocking chair she was sitting on and drew it around her shoulders. It smelt suspiciously like wet dog and the earth, but it comforted her as she relaxed against the cushions and smothered a yawn with the back of her hand.

James limped through the back door of the house, the ankle he'd twisted getting out of the woods throbbing painfully as he helped manoeuvre Remus into one of the dining chairs. Peter dropped himself into one of the other chairs, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath.

"Where's Lily?" Sirius asked as he came into the kitchen, his left eye almost closed from where it had swollen so much. Moony hadn't held back in his anger last night, and it was mostly Sirius who had taken the brunt of it.

"Dunno, mate." James answered honestly, frowning lightly when there was no sound of his wife moving around.

"She's around here somewhere." Sirius said, nodding when his best friend looked at him in confusion. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm in need of a shower and I'm bloody knackered."

He slowly made his way upstairs and heard the bottom step creak when he was on the landing. James got to the top of the narrow stairs as Sirius disappeared into the bathroom and headed in the opposite direction.

He gently eased the door to his and Lily's bedroom open, poking his head around it and scanning the room for red hair. Hazel eyes landed on the sleeping face of his wife next to the window, and he grinned, his lip splitting painfully.

Ignoring the pain, James crept across the room carefully, avoiding the floorboard at the end of the bed that liked to squeak if so much as a piece of dust landed on it. When he reached Lily's side, he crouched down next to her, watching her breathe for a few minutes, taking note of how peaceful she looked when she wasn't worried about fighting a war. He brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb brushing her cheek softly.

Lily's breathing hitched as she slowly blinked her eyes open, and James watched in amusement as she tried to focus. Her gaze landed on him and she swore.

"Bollocks!"

"Well, if I knew that's how I'd be welcomed home, I wouldn't have bothered." He grinned when Lily scowled at him.

"Pillock. I wanted to be up when you got back." She muttered, running a hand over her hair to check if it was still in the bun she'd put it in. Satisfied it was, she smiled at him, reaching out to smooth the fringe away from his forehead. "Hi."

"Hi." He grabbed her hand between his own, rubbing his thumb over her fingers. "Missed me then." He commented, nodding towards the old Gryffindor Quidditch jumper she was wearing.

"As if. Why would I miss you? You snore, you leave your crap lying around the house," she ignored his protests that it was also Sirius' crap, "and you're a terrible shag."

"Not what you were saying the other day." James grumbled half-heartedly, leaning forwards to brush his lips against hers.

"You're insufferable, Potter." Lily smiled as she pulled him towards her, her free arm wrapping around his neck as she burrowed her head into his shoulder.

"You love me really, Mrs Potter."


End file.
